28 October 2018 1:49 AM

The burglars are at your door. And the police? Hiding in their office: How the balance of fear is shifting in Britain as criminals are no loner afraid of the law

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column

Britain today is like a ship, long ago holed deep beneath the waterline, which now begins to list alarmingly, as the sea starts to slop on to the deck.

In many parts of this country, the balance of fear is shifting. Criminals are not afraid of the police and the courts. Normal people are afraid of wrongdoers.

How long before this happens where you live?

And then, what use will your easily broken windows and easily kicked-in front door be, or your burglar alarms to which nobody will respond?

In London, where the horror of knife crime is now plainly out of control, police are failing hopelessly in their efforts to catch and prosecute the culprits, even where there are living witnesses who could identify the men who tried to kill them. But they dare not do so.

As Sarah Jones, a Labour MP who heads Parliament’s all-party group on knife crime, says: ‘What’s particularly shocking is the growing number of offences where the police identified a suspect but they weren’t prosecuted because the victim did not support further action. This suggests a serious problem with victims feeling too afraid or mistrustful to testify.’

I would guess that this goes a lot further.

Many of us who have had dealings of one kind or another with the modern police suspect that, if we go to them, they will probably manage to mess up the case, ably assisted by the CPS, while also giving our full personal details to the suspect.

Even if they get it right, the criminal will be ‘spared jail’ by a feeble judge. Simpler to let it go.

And so the figures of recorded crime have a very distant relationship to actual crime. If there’s no insurance to be claimed, why bother?

Most of us reluctantly recognise that things which were once restrained by the law – general low-level nastiness, vandalism, public drunkenness, illegal drugs – have now been decriminalised by stealth.

The problem is that almost nobody in politics, or the media, or the police, is remotely interested in why this has happened or how to put it right.

The police themselves are like BT, or one of the other monster monopolies, which view the public as a nuisance.

The Police Federation is just another public service union, whose solution to everything is more taxpayers’ cash. But a lingering sentimentality stops us seeing this.

We used to like and respect the police, and we wish we still did, so we are more easily fooled by them than by any other lobby.

Take the current moaning about how their almost complete failure to enforce the laws against burglary, drunk driving, and drug possession is caused by a shortage of officers.

This is not true.

Police strengths are down a bit from their 2009 peak (was that an especially crime-free year?) but are significantly higher than they were in the days when all forces managed to patrol the streets.

The problem is that the police are doing the wrong thing.

Think about it. Please. What use is a police officer after a crime has been committed, unless he or she can do first aid?

If your life has been ruined by a drunken driver, or a motorist texting while driving, he cannot unruin that life. He cannot restore the irrevocably lost mental health of the teen who has smoked marijuana.

The best he can do is, with a lot of luck, arrange for the criminals involved to do a bit of community service, or be sentenced to a fine they won’t actually pay.

His job was to prevent these things from happening, by being a visible, patrolling presence in every town and village.

But he has stopped doing this.

The beats he used to walk long ago vanished. The police stations, hundreds of them, were sold off. So were the police houses. The police road patrols became a rarity.

The modern police deride these simple, effective methods. They claim they cannot halt cybercrime or terrorism or domestic abuse.

Well, this would be a good argument if the modern police methods of hiding in remote office blocks or driving about chatting to each other, worked any better.

But they do not.

I am astonished that the debate on this subject continues at this ignorant, partisan level.

It is as if the captain and his first lieutenant were arguing, on the bridge, about the menu for dinner, while the ship went down by the bows.

Corbynites may love the new film Peterloo, about the indefensible massacre, in 1819, of unarmed Englishmen and women by drunken, stupid soldiers under the command of dolts.

If Left-wing speeches are your thing, there is no shortage of them in this drama, which seemed to me to last slightly longer than the Hundred Years War.

The final scenes of slaughter are, by contrast, powerfully moving.

But the whole point of Peterloo is that it was the middle classes who publicised it, using that great invention, the newspaper, and denounced it, and sought the reforms which ensured that the voice of the people would be heard and heeded in the land, without bloodshed.

I feel great sympathy for the old soldiers now being dragged from their retirement by officious detectives to face investigations about long ago events in Northern Ireland.

Soldiers are owed the total loyalty of the Crown, which sent them into danger and demanded their disciplined obedience.

But I feel no sympathy with most of the soppy politicians now raising their cases and bleating about how unfair it all is.

For these politicians continue to pretend that our abject crawling to IRA gangsters (and ‘Loyalist’ gangsters, too) in Belfast in 1998 was a benevolent, happy peace deal.

It was not. It was a capitulation.

Which is why it is we who withdrew our forces, and we who hauled down our flags and ceded our territory (it will pass to Dublin’s control quite soon).

Our lawless enemies kept their guns and bombs, rose to power, and dined at Windsor Castle.

And it is our soldiers who face police inquiries, while hundreds of grisly terrorists were released from well-earned prison sentences, and hundreds more promised that their bloody crimes are forgotten.

How strange it is that a country which admires Churchill’s defiance of a wicked and mighty enemy applauds our surrender to a small, criminal gang.

Unlike those who rushed to conclusions about alleged gas attacks in Syria, without bothering with evidence, I have waited till it is beyond reasonable doubt that the Saudi regime murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, on their own premises, using their own state- paid hoodlums.

And now I can say this to our Government, and to the warlike media voices and MPs of all parties who have postured over the undoubted wickedness of Russia and Syria: You are hypocrites. Your moralising is all phoney.

Because, as we will see in the years to come, the many barbarities of the Saudi regime will not lead to sanctions, or bombing raids or missiles or mass expulsions of diplomats.

Nor will the increasingly obvious aggression and despotism of our other great friends, the Chinese.

These killers and tyrants will still be welcome at Buckingham Palace. And this does not really bother you.

So it is obvious that we, as a country, can be bought, and actually have no morals.

And so either your outrage against Syria and Russia is a pose to make you look better than you are; or you do not know what you are talking about; or you have other, less creditable reasons for seeking conflict with these countries.

That is now established.

*******

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Your neolithic history always struck me as a reductio. Similarly with your "if only there were no society there'd just be individuals". But this is me already going against my promise, so I'll now hold my tongue.

The protest by James 28 October, 12:41 PM was on the grounds that: "Ireland belongs to the Irish ... Your country was not invited into Ireland ... The Irish people did no less but for some reason are still viewed by some as "occupiers" of their own country."

The response indicated some reasons - that the situation was historically more complex and counter-intuitive.

It is easy not to disagree with everyone being more reasonable but it does leave the problem of explaining why they're not.

Defining terms is the central issue which would be taken by real populations out in the real world with James' argument - who qualifies as Irish - and there is no point in not acknowledging it.

The principle that the Irish should not be subject to the English against their will is one with universal application.

-"And then, you either touch on an interesting point, or are again (to me) completely inscrutable: "Why -"against their will"- (why their will is what it is) is another question.""-

When this issue has been discussed on any forum there is every effort made not to attribute differences to anything other than the political when the only reason there are identifiable differences in the first place is religious.

-"Your subsequent quote suggests that this is an allusion to the implications of the fact that we are all products of the society we live in. Alas, the quote also indicates that you have not moved on from the position you did not manage to defend in our last exchange, that the individual is prior to the society that produced them: "I think that any political position ahead of their individuality is a regression to a tribalism..." The contortion required here is logically impossible. The "individuality" insisted upon is the basis of much recent ideology, both among "free" marketeers and among "free" spirits."-

If nobody had come up with these made-up differences everyone would be seen as the same - i.e. as individuals.

As Desmond Morris has written - 'The Human Zoo': "No out-group has been formed, for example, of people who belong to blood group O despite the fact that, like skin colour or hair pattern, it is distinct and genetically controlled factor. The reason is simple enough - you cannot tell who *is* group O, simply by looking at them."

I had intended to give you the last word. I still will. But let it include a clarification for me. I may well be slow (I don't deny it), but your contributions are also sometimes...opaque.

You gave us a little list of historical events. This was in response to a protest by another contributor, and appeared to be intended to convey that the protest was ill-founded.

You now a week later finally get round to what was actually said, and tell me that you have no quarrel with it. It turns out you were merely giving us some random chunks of history to digest.

You then unfortunately go on to the good old "define your terms" routine. I think we both know that defining and redefining terms will not cause us to disagree that the Irish should not be subject to the English against their will.

And then, you either touch on an interesting point, or are again (to me) completely inscrutable:

"Why -"against their will"- (why their will is what it is) is another question."

Your subsequent quote suggests that this is an allusion to the implications of the fact that we are all products of the society we live in. Alas, the quote also indicates that you have not moved on from the position you did not manage to defend in our last exchange, that the individual is prior to the society that produced them:

"I think that any political position ahead of their individuality is a regression to a tribalism..."

The contortion required here is logically impossible. The "individuality" insisted upon is the basis of much recent ideology, both among "free" marketeers and among "free" spirits.

'The discussion has been about adeledicnander's objections to someone''s protest against the idea that England has any right to rule over the Irish against their will. If the Irish volunteer or acquiesce, that is different. Otherwise, do you not think the protest not justified?'

I don't think the English have any right to rule over the Irish against their will. I just decided to put my two-penneth in because the Loyalist population often seem to be minimalised or left out of discussions like this. It seems like the general consensus is that if you ignore them they will just go away. They deserve better than that. You talk of gerrymandering but I doubt if there is any border in the world that has not been formed by conflict.

The "majority" in the "North". It's called gerrymandering. By Britain. But, yes, I agree. Even the IRA has recognised (I believe, though I may be wrong) that this is not a sufficient response.

The discussion has been about adeledicnander's objections to someone''s protest against the idea that England has any right to rule over the Irish against their will. If the Irish volunteer or acquiesce, that is different. Otherwise, do you not think the protest not justified?

-"what reason is there to think England has any business governing the Irish against their will?"-

As a point of principle nothing posted here on this or any topic would argue against this or any such self determination.

That there is still any discussion by others about this in reality is that the description itself is wide open to dispute about definitions of terms and were that not the case the real world differences could all have resolved themselves a long time ago.

A book by Edward de Bono addressed 'why Western thought since the Renaissance has proved so productive in resolving technical problems whilst at the same time so much of problematic human affairs remains unresolved and seemingly irresolvable'
('I Am Right And You Are Wrong').

-"If the Irish were Buddhists, or followers of Voodoo, or all good Anglicans, or, as now, lived in a liberal democracy whose "in-group", if you will, comprises all its citizens, the question would still remain."-

Why -"against their will"- (why their will is what it is) is another question.

A recent (29th October) discussion with Jordan Peterson on YouTube for SVT/TV includes this at 20 minutes in:

SVT: And part of the problem is what we call identity politics.

"Yes. I think that any political position ahead of their individuality is a regression to a tribalism that will definitely become violent. Because that's what happens to tribes."

SVT: Give us an example.

"Of identity politics playing that role? It happens every time people divide themselves into tribal groups. I mean, what we're trying to do to make peace is to bring people under the rubric of approximating a single identity. People fight in tribes..? That's the entire evidence of the human race. And the further back you go in time and the smaller the tribal groups become, the higher the rates of inter-tribal warfare and the higher the rates of homicide."

'Just one last time: if the Irish were Buddhists, or followers of Voodoo, or all good Anglicans, or, as now, lived in a liberal democracy whose "in-group", if you will, comprises all its citizens, the question would still remain - what reason is there to think England has any business governing the Irish against their will?'

I thought the root of the Irish problem over the last hundred years or so is that the will of the majority of people in the North is that they want to be ruled from London?

Just one last time: if the Irish were Buddhists, or followers of Voodoo, or all good Anglicans, or, as now, lived in a liberal democracy whose "in-group", if you will, comprises all its citizens, the question would still remain - what reason is there to think England has any business governing the Irish against their will?

That's not much help, I'm afraid. I had thought of asking you for details of the contribution from the character you mistakenly thought was me. You gave the date it appeared, but no details of the post in question, leaving me a rather lengthy search.

Actually, I have little knowledge of the Army, having spent my time in a blue uniform. However, as you don't intend to engage in further chats in the future, I'm not expecting event a hint of an apology for your error.
And you, in turn, you should not be surprised in the future to read comments addressed to your here above the name that follows...

I've no desire to exchange any thoughts with you or "Christopher P. Lassen" but I will offer 2 pieces of information which blows the cover of the responses (To the Heseltine post) right out of the water
1. There is no 'Airborne Corps' in the British Army.
2. "Garrison and Field duties" refers to 'well out of harm's way (away from the action) and those who prefer to choose those roles are known as 'backsliders'

My post Mrs. B. 3rd November 2018 at 9.45.
I apologise for the errors. My eyes are not good on a tablet first thing!

I was hearing the mantra about tax and legalisation of drugs from young teens back in the 80's.
That cannabis was a, "soft drug".
It takes motivation away. It IS a gateway drug.

I've always told any youngster who is so brainwashed by the tax and legalise( and Howard Marks) was qouted, that the need for the tax, is greater than your health and welfare.

The same applies to alcohol and the targeting of young with alcopops etc allowing corner shops to sell it, where it is easy to not obey the laws on selling to a minor, sloppy selling, increasing the hours of selling, away from the old pub hours.
The 24 hour drinking brought in.

Pre-loading with drink, then consuming in a, "Happy hour".
The old not serving anyone who's had too much seems to have gone by the wayside.
Instead of going for a drink in a pub, where publicans worked with the police to " Keep a good house" , where police arrived to sort any fight that may have broken out, back to the station, the changes, facilitated the "binge drinking" culture,. Young adults getting so inebriated that they were sent to A& E, then progressed straight to A&E, for fear of consequences of deaths in cells.
The fallout from drug and alcohol consumption, automatically means more police time needed.
Rise in violence rise in domestic abuse callouts.
The, " crack cocaine" gambling machines in betting shops, the gambling online, is leading to misery and drawing in a young element.
By delaing the reduction of £2 bet from £100 means more tax take.
Means another catalyst to domestic violence.
More police time.
"Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"
We know what needs to be done , the messages sent to our young, but the thought of tax take beckons, so they are expendable.

I was interested to read P. 1362. .01 November 2018 account, going back to what would have been 1988.
There has been an attitude from certain police officers councils and those in charge of minors, still children however damaged, abused or from what very broken homes and lifestyles and influences they came from.
He uses the term " delinquent" which is not a term that begs a "why" question. Unlike, "damaged" unlike , " broken home".
1988 I was one of those police wives who lived in tge beat houses of the estates we, as it was apartnership with our husbands, none more so than being a P.A. general dogsbody for free in a country beat.
1988 was the time of change in the education of our young, from a parent point of view, dumbing down on literacy discipline and young teachers from a drug and drink fuelled enckuraging ethos of university, and of the rise of a shift from stabikity in homes to homes where they only had one parental influence and were very reliant on state.
We had government members who have been shown to have linkages with P.I.E.
Grouos of young who enterered a strange system supposedly for protection and learning the boundaries of life
I'm interested in these Asian men. These adults who gave young people drugs . A blind eye turned because of the children's lifestyle choices or because as we know today, political correctness prevents, or shoukd I say, scaredy cat, police chiefs, councils, social services from highlighting the scale of " grooming gangs" who have allowed this abuse to continue and increase and spread.
Not to the children's homes where there has niw been abuses highlighted but throughout our country to young girls outside shops and which often sees them taken around the country, often in taxis and passed around or even dumped on a motorway.
We even gave a TV drama, "Take three girls".
A female detective and social worker who drew attention to this turning of a blind eye.
Anne Cryer MP alsomtrird. As did Sarah Champion who ended up on Labour backbenchers.
Back in the 80's it would have been possible to give strong messages to estate dealers and young who they preyed on. ( From ordinary homes, too) About 14 years of age, now down to 9, or younger.
As parents on estates, tax legalise was the mention sold to youngsters. As all sorts of media has increased, it's the tax take message that will allow this misery to more family breakdown.

The near universal ploy of 'shifting the goalposts' and 'playing the man not the ball' departs from being one about the validity or otherwise of the facts to an unrequited personal critique of the one holding the opposite point of view.

According to Marshall Rosenberg:
"It establishes the speaker as someone who sits in judgment."

-"We agree (I think) that the populations of the British Isles are mixtures of mixtures. You put great weight on the overlap between these mixtures (although we have yet to learn to what purpose you put such weight on it.)"-

We each have two parents, four grandparents and eight great-grandparents and so on. The further back in time, the more ancestors we have.

According to the web, in the year 1280 we each had 351 million ancestors and there were 351 million humans on Earth.

-"You then change tack and quote a pundit, in multi-ethnic cultures it tends to be civil war rather than universal brotherhood.' Maybe so, maybe not."-

It depends on numbers, long ago set as a one third-two thirds ratio when open hostilities break out.

-"This confused me. You were talking about the ethnic mix common to the British Isles. Now you're talking about ethnic difference."-

Historical differences in the British Isles have been cultural as opposed to biological.

-"I asked whether this means you think the Irish struggle against English rule is civil war in your pundit's sense. You replied that it's moot i.e you don't know."-

Rather that any two people will not necessarily agree on a definition.

According to the OED "civil war" means "between citizens of the same country".

This in-group vs out-group difference between citizens of the same country is not an individually biologically visible difference. It is entirely a made-up difference by an accident of history.

-"And now you move on to totalitarianism in politics and religion. So it is not that ethnic difference (or ethnic overlap) causes civil war, but totalitarian ideology that causes strife."-

The purpose of group identity is theoretically for protection but this is protective in the context of a homogeneous culture in a country within established defended borders, without which a visible group identity merely marks out the most defenceless members of an identifiable group for attack by their most aggressive rivals.

I hope it didn't take you almost three days to compose your response, particularly when I have no idea what this character said that made you think it was me in disguise.
But, no worry, I'm sure we'll exchange thoughts again.

It seems the Scottish settlers in Ireland were the returned descendants of Irish emigrants who had previously settled in Scotland.

-"a pope donated Ireland to the King of England"-

England had been invaded by the Norman French (1066 and all that) who became kings of England and then went on to Ireland.

-"a neolithic population in Ireland was displaced by an invasion of "Celts"-

From the Web:
"A Timeline of Irish Archaeology" [first and last lines of each era quoted below]:

"Mesolithic 8000BC - 4000BC
Earliest recorded inhabitants of Ireland appear to have arrived sometime around 8000 BC, most likely on boats from Britain.

Neolithic 4000BC - 2500BC
The next phase in Irish prehistory saw the arrival of the first farmers in and around 4000BC.

Bronze Age 2500BC - 500BC
The next major phase in Irish prehistory is characterised by the arrival of metalworking.

Iron Age c.500BC - 400AD
This period is also associated with the arrival of the Celts to Ireland and although a Celtic language definitely became established on the island, evidence far a large scale invasion/migration is still far from conclusive in archaeological terms."

"People also ask: When did the Celts arrive in Ireland?"
"They arrived in Britain and Ireland around 500BC and within a few hundred years, Ireland's Bronze Age culture had all but disappeared, and Celtic culture was in place across the entire island."

-"So what do we risk repeating? The Irish kings swearing fealty to Elizabeth? Scottish Protestants evicting Irish Catholics from their land? The English claiming some right or other to rule over Ireland? I asked you what lessons you think we should learn from your facts and factoids. ...So what is the "problem which is to come" that we can avoid by learning the lessons provided by your facts and factoids: what are those lessons?"-

The common denominator of totalitarian political and religious ideologies is the de-humanising 'us and them' markers of group identity and their creation of 'the other'.

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